Due to being harassed and threatened by a bully coworker, I’m looking for a new job. There are a few prospects out there, but I haven’t got a new job lined up. The thing is, I took last week off to look for work and to get away from the coworker who threatened my life. Now, I’m back at work (taking a break really shows you how bad things are!) and I still have two weeks of vacation built up. Am I legally entitled to those vacation days if I quit? Or if I tell my boss I’m quitting, am I giving up two weeks paid vacation? It would be a shame not to receive those paychecks.
In the jobs I’ve held, you’d be entitled to vacation days that you’ve already accrued, but not sick time. The vacation time would be paid to you with your final paycheck.
It’s probably laid out in your company handbook. Try to track down a copy of the employee handbook or talk to HR about it. My last job paid out my earned time off and I got a check for 30 dollars after I left. But I’m sure it’s going to be different for each workplace.
Check your company policies. At all my previous positions, it works like Enginerd said: you’re paid for any accrued vacation time not taken (though not sick time).
I’m not clear whether your two weeks is total for the year or what you have remaining after you took your week to look for another job. If you have two weeks left, you may have some accrrued time left. If you have two weeks total, you probably don’t (depending on how your company calculates it).
I just checked the Employee Manual. It is rather vague about it, simply stating that left over paid vacation will be discussed in an exit meeting. It makes me wonder if I should just take a few more days off just to make sure I get them. Wouldn’t hurt in the job search process either, I reckon.
In Massachusetts, it is treated as accrued pay and paid out as cash by law if you quit without taking it.
If you are unclear, take the two weeks time off you have, then quit. If you find a job immediately, you can get paid twice for those two weeks.
In California it would have to be paid. If you are not sure, turn in two weeks notice, and take two weeks vacation. Problem solved.
In the states I’ve lived in, that time is yours and they owe you for them. In fact vacataion time not used is an accrued liability on their books. It all depends when the time accrues. In AT&T before the trivestiture, your whole year’s worth accrued on Jan. 1. When I quit Jan. 15 with a buyout, I got paid for six weeks of vacation time. 
In my current job, vacation accrues each pay period.
Make sure you’ve already accrued this time off, though, because if you haven’t it will be deducted from your final pay. If they’ve promised you 3 weeks vacation for 2007 and it’s only March, you’ve accrued less than one week and at this point you owe THEM time if you’ve already taken a full week off. At least that’s how it’s been at the companies at which I’ve worked.
You might want to check the handbook to see what they say about life-threatening bullies, as well. You don’t have to take that, ya know.
That’s what I was going to say. You don’t have to put up with that kind of crap at work. Have you discussed this situation with your boss or HR?
In some cases, it matters whether you give appropriate notice as well. Meaning, if you’re expected to give 2 weeks notice, and you signed a contract to that fact, and you don’t, you can end up forfeiting that vacation accrual. I’m never sure whether that’s enforceable, though. Check your state laws.
Your post does not say where you are. The Flsa does not require you to be compensated for any vacation or sick time. However, your specific state laws may override this. Vacation Pay
In some states, payout of accrued vacation time is mandated by law. In other states it is not so it depends entirely upon your employer in that case. If your employer has a policy of paying out unused vacation time then you should be able to expect that with or shortly after your last paycheck.
If your employer’s handbook is that vague on the vacation time payout, taking those days off to dedicate them to the job hunt would “guarantee” you get paid for them rather than hoping they’ll pay them to you after you leave.
Charger ** - he/she threatened your life? That tends to be a bad, bad thing to even the suckiest, most uncaring of companies. Has HR/supervisor been put on notice? You probably have a good cause of action if they were duly notified and did nothing or not enough, causing you to have to leave in fear of your life. Are you up to posting a little more about it? No biggie if you’re not - just concerned for you, fellow Doper.
**just from my experiences as an HR manager - I’m not a lawyer, not qualified to give legal advice, blah blah blah. Sorry this is happening to you. 
Your location is blank, which as you can see, leads to questions.
But if a cow-orker threatened to kill me, not only would I notify HR and upper management- by email, phone and certified letter, I’d be calling the police and my lawyer.
In South Carolina, the law states that the employer has the option not to pay for unused vacation days as long as the handbook spells it out. Vacation pay is not protected once you’re no longer in their employ. Don’t know where you are…
FYI, I live in Wisconsin.
Here are the details of the incident. I started a thread on it a while ago here on SDMB. Located here, at this link. I have been emailing the boss (we have no HR) and letting hiim know whenever I was being harassed. On February 12th, I sent the boss an email about his recent rude behavior, the fact that he teases me specifically about things I email the boss about, as well as his unnecessary overtime and tendency to overcharge customers for time spent on jobs. On February 13th at 3:20PM (his shift ends at 3:00), he began teasing me in a mocking tone saying, “Is it okay with you if I work overtime today? I know you don’t like when I work any ‘unnecessary overtime.’” I said, “Do what you want.” He said, “Well, I don’t want you to get upset and have to tell on me.” I said nothing. He said, “Still nothing,” indicating that he was looking for a reaction. Then he said, “Rat me out again, I’ll kill ya.” I said, “What?” He didn’t respond.
So I called the police later on. They wanted to send an officer to talk with him. Trouble is, I said “What?” partly out of shock, but also partly out of uncertainty of what he said. So, I opted not to have an officer come in. I, honestly, am not 100% sure that’s what he said. After all, who says that?!. Then I began to wonder how he had been reading my email, and I wondered a little bit about why he wasn’t shy about letting me know he had read my email. Had the boss been sharing them with him, or had he been poking his nose onto my computer? Our computers have software on them that tracks our activity, taking a screen shot every few minutes. I adjusted that software to run during both of our shifts, instead of just my shift. And, yes, he has been going into my email and reading it every morning. I have several redundant printouts of those screenshots with the time and date in which my email program was open, usually right at the beginning of his shift.
While I haven’t talked to the boss about the incident or anything else since that day, my feeling is that the coworker should have been reprimanded (read: terminated) long before it came to this point. Even while reporting each incident, nothing was being done. So, I’m moving on. I intend to give my boss a stack of printouts showing all the times the coworker has checked my email during my exit meeting. At this point, the reason I’m leaving is not because of the coworker, it’s because the boss has done nothing to resolve the situation since I brought it to his attention in November.
IANAL, but I’ll bet that other Dopers will second this: keep documenting everything, including your keeping your boss informed of these developments, and keep a copy at home. If you don’t want to leave, maybe you should schedule an offsite meeting with your boss to make your fears and intention (to leave if the situation isn’t fixed) clear. If your idiot boss still doesn’t take action, give notice, use up your days, and get a lawyer to look into this. It sounds like you have a prime opportunity for a lawsuit against your employer.
Yeah, in some states you aren’t owed diddly. I lost five weeks when I left my last job in Connecticut.